Conventionally, a distributed file system, also referred to as a cluster file system, is a file system that allows access to resources (e.g., files) from multiple hosts sharing via a computer network. As nodes in the distributed file system can share resources, the nodes may also compete or contend for a particular resource. Currently, a lock manager is usually used in some conventional distributed file systems to arbitrate between nodes and provide shared or exclusive access to each resource. In general, there is no mechanism in place to detect contention beyond degrading response times of file system operations, which may also be caused by other bottlenecks in the system. A conventional distributed file system may eventually become aware of possible resource contention between two or more nodes after a long wait.
Resource contention in a distributed file system is an important problem because such contention normally results in very poor performance due to the amount of time required to grant locks and send callbacks by the lock manager and the associated set up and tear down time on each node, and the time for which the workload is blocked waiting for the lock, preventing workload from proceeding normally. Because of the lack of resource contention detection, it is generally difficult to manage latency and throughput in conventional distributed file systems.